// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Our first five impressions of Googlebooks — exciting but underbaked
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Google’s new laptop OS shows lots of promise for Android phone owners, but there’s a long road ahead.
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Googlebooks are here. The first models went on sale Sunday, October 4th, and we received review units of all five Googlebooks about 24 hours ago. Since then, we’ve been in a mad dash to put the devices through their paces and get a check on what it’s like to use these Android laptops.
At first glance, Googlebooks feel very Chromebook-ish, and at times a little janky. But Google has some great new ideas afoot on how a laptop and phone interact. You can already link your phone to a Windows laptop to sync your notifications and mirror your whole iPhone on macOS. But Googlebooks allow you to take actions on your phone from your laptop in a way that feels natural. When it works, of course.
Here are all the things we’re learning, feeling, and thinking about so far with Googlebooks. The good, the bad, and the weird.
Googlebooks revolve around using an Android phone, and Google’s execution here is great. Setting up a Googlebook with an Android phone is simple and painless. The out-of-box experience is pretty intuitive, prompting you to pair your phone by scanning a QR code, sign into your Google account, and then download some of the apps you’ve already installed on your phone. It’s similar to the most recent Chromebooks, but it’s intuitive.